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Younghusband
Author

Younghusband

Date

May 23rd, 2006

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Face of the enemy

In the War on Terror, this is who we are up against:

Mustafa Setmariam Nasar

Mustafa Setmariam Nasar

  • 1958 born Aleppo, Syria
  • red hair, fair skin
  • 1985 emigrated to Spain
  • married
  • dual Spanish-Syrain citizenship
  • 1980’s (early) fought with Muslim Brotherhood
  • 1987 fought in Afghanistan
  • 1992 returned to set up cells in Europe including Spain, Britain, Italy
  • 1998 left London for Afghanistan, swore oath to Mohammad Omar
  • editor of extremist Arabic-language newsletter: al-Ansar
  • author of internet-circulated The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance (1600 pages) which advises near-Leaderless Resistance
  • works with al Qaeda but emphasizes that he is an independent operator
  • 2005 (Oct) captured in Quetta

Read about his life story in WAPO.

Comments to this entry

purpleslog
May 23, 2006
7:26 pm
Any luck finding a link to "The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance"? I have not been able to find it.
Tagore
May 23, 2006
8:06 pm
In the words of Che, Nasar is a "Jesuit of War," but his strategies are hardly suprising or original.

Is there anyone on the planet who did not already know that jihadi terrorist organizations are organized into cells with minimal inter-communication? Useless...
Curzon
May 23, 2006
9:12 pm
Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the race/ethnicity of the enemy is not uniform?

On the one hand, the understanding that Al Qaeda operatives could be white, black, red, yellow or brown (to paraphrase Jesse Jackson) stops racial profiling, makes it easier for the percieved stereotypical "terrorists" i.e. Arabs to live in America and the West, and all the rest.

However, it also ups the fear factor -- _anyone_ could be Al Qaeda, _anyone_ could be a terrorist...
Steve
May 23, 2006
9:51 pm
It did state the obvious, didnt it? At any rate, it is good that we have something to go on about the type of people out there looking to wage war.
Tagore
May 24, 2006
5:19 am
Curzon,

I think since Timothy McVeigh and Johnny Walker Lind, we have all known that terrorists could be any skin color. In fact, the most wanted terror organization in the US before 2001 was/is composed of mainly European-American males: the Earth Liberation Front.

However, none of these facts have had any perceptible impact on reducing racial profiling and discrimination against minority populations.
Younghusband
May 24, 2006
6:15 am
I thought his ability to travel the breadth of the world on his mission was the amazing part. I think his actual face might have helped him in his movement, but this guy has a pretty impressive set of stamps in his passport.
Elizabeth
May 24, 2006
9:18 am
Three cheers to Tagore for his comment. I look very Asian, to the point that in Turkey, people wouldn't speak English to me for several minutes. Turks came up to me on the street and asked me for directions in Turkish. I'm a Christian and a hundreth-generation American, but if you put me through the racial profiling loop, I'm screwed. That's just a bunch of bunk.

Moreover, Iranians, and Persian peoples, are often light-haired. Well, maybe not as often as the Irish, but more often than you'd think. Probably about 25% of the population of Tajikistan would never be picked out as non-Aryan by the profilers. Same goes for Iranians, Uzbeks, and Afghans. Because they're Aryans is why, actually, but never mind the facts.

Tajik Girl
Another Tajik Girl
And... Another Tajik Girl
Tajik Boy
Iranian Girl

Also... plastic surgery. Hair dye. Try it sometime: that stuff does actually work. Just look at Pam Anderson.

Anyone could be a terrorist. But most people aren't.

But what I really wanted to say was that that guy is brilliant. I mean in an intellectual way, obviously. Wasn't he the one who set up much of Al Qaeda's cell system, moving from the traditional hierarchial system to one that resembled a more network system?

He also developed a number of intersting liberation-theology type theories based on the Quran and his own philosophical arguments.
phil jones
May 24, 2006
2:46 pm
Looking at his resume, what I'd really like to know is how he got radicalized, and against who.

He's Syrian. The first bit of fighting he does (in his early 20s in the early 80s) is with the Muslim Brotherhood. But where? Against who? In Syria? Egypt? Is there a Lebanon connection if this is the early 80s?

Then he goes to Spain in 85.

But in 87 he's in Afghanistan, presumably fighting the Russians.

In 1992 he's back in Europe organizing cells. Against Europeans? Why? Was that his intention all along? Since 85? Or is this an idea he got in Afghanistan? From OBL? Or in response to the western troops in Saudi for the first gulf war?

Instead of racial profiling, surely "motivational" profiling would be more interesting.
Matt
May 25, 2006
3:36 am
@tagore

You wrote: "Is there anyone on the planet who did not already know ... Useless"¦"

The thing I learned from reading about Mustafa was that he was describing this very early on. He may not have orginated these ideas, but he understood them before they were wide spread. Also I was impressed that he was only caught recently. Obviously a smart man.
Elizabeth
May 25, 2006
4:03 am
Matt/Tagore: in fact, jihadi terrorist cells weren't organized like that in Al Qaeda before this guy, at least according to what I read. Apparently they were very hierarchial, organized after a Muslim Brotherhood-type organization. And what he did was to bring in standard terrorist organizational tactics (mainly developed to 20th/21st century standards by the communists) into the Islamic movement.

Very, very intelligent.

I wonder how much of it is, to him, a game in which he is just playing on the right side? Sounds more like a strategist, right-hand man for a figurehead than a typical jihadi fighter with nothing to lose.
Younghusband
May 25, 2006
4:28 am
Actually, Leninist/Communist movements in the mid-20th century used a hierarchical cell structure, whereas Al Qaeda broke that mold and used a distributed network cell structure (other than the leadership, which retained a hierarchy). This change was seen in certain business models developed during the 90's in response to the information revolution. Like Matt said, Nasar "may not have originated these ideas, but he understood them before they were widespread" and seems to be the one behind putting them to use in a terrorist organization.
Elizabeth
May 25, 2006
4:31 am
I was thinking more of Marxist, Maoist, and other less hierarchial terrorist organizations, like those found in Western Europe.

Lenin was famously hierarchially minded, but this is quite against what most communists were doing.

I think the cell structure spread out more with information technology, but this would make him even more of an innovator, not less of one.